The Emergence of Hybrid Grammars (Paperback)

Enoch Olade Aboh

ISBN 10: 0521150221 / ISBN 13: 9780521150224

Editore: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2019

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Paperback. Children are extremely gifted in acquiring their native languages, but languages nevertheless change over time. Why does this paradox exist? In this study of creole languages, Enoch Olade Aboh addresses this question, arguing that language acquisition requires contact between different linguistic sub-systems that feed into the hybrid grammars that learners develop. There is no qualitative difference between a child learning their language in a multilingual environment and a child raised in a monolingual environment. In both situations, children learn to master multiple linguistic sub-systems that are in contact and may be combined to produce new variants. These new variants are part of the inputs for subsequent learners. Contributing to the debate on language acquisition and change, Aboh shows that language learning is always imperfect: learners' motivation is not to replicate the target language faithfully but to develop a system close enough to the target that guarantees successful communication and group membership. Based on a detailed study of creole languages, this book contributes to the debate on language acquisition and change by showing that language acquisition requires contact between different linguistic sub-systems that feed into the hybrid grammars that learners develop. Competition between these grammars may eventually result in language change. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.

Codice articolo 9780521150224

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: The Emergence of Hybrid Grammars (Paperback)
• Editore: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
• Data di pubblicazione: 2019
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0521150221
• ISBN 13: 9780521150224
• Rilegatura: Paperback
• Condizione: new

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

This account of language acquisition in a multilingual context explains how hybrid grammars develop and can result in language change.

Informazioni sull?autore

Enoch Oladé Aboh is Professor of Linguistics at Universiteit van Amsterdam. His publications include The Morphosyntax of Complement-head Sequences (2004). In 2012 he was awarded the renowned one-year NIAS fellowship, and in 2003 he obtained the prestigious Dutch Science Foundation (NWO) five-year vidi grant to study the relation between information structure and syntax.