Cross-linguistic scope ambiguity: When two systems meet

Abstract

Accurately recognizing and resolving ambiguity is a hallmark of linguistic ability. English is a language with scope ambiguities in doubly-quantified sentences like A shark ate every pirate; this sentence can either describe a scenario with a single shark eating all of the pirates, or a scenario with many sharks-a potentially-different one eating each pirate. In Mandarin Chinese, the corresponding sentence is unambiguous, as it can only describe the single-shark scenario. We present experimental evidence to this effect, comparing native speakers of English with native speakers of Mandarin in their interpretations of doubly-quantified sentences. Having demonstrated the difference between these two languages in their ability for inverse scope interpretations, we then probe the robustness of the grammar of scope by extending our experiments to English-dominant adult heritage speakers of Mandarin. Like native speakers of Mandarin, heritage Mandarin speakers lack inverse scope in Mandarin. Crucially, these speakers also lack inverse scope in English, their dominant language in adulthood. We interpret these results as evidence for the pressure to simplify the grammar of scope, decreasing ambiguity when possible. In other words, when two systems meet-as in the case of heritage speakers-the simpler system prevails.

A roadmap for heritage language research

“…The issue is that most studies of HLs focus, expectedly, on the HERITAGE language, which means that potential effects on the DOMINANT language often go uninvestigated. In one study that examined both the heritage and the dominant language, Scontras, Polinsky, Tsai and Mai (2017) documented a reduction of ambiguity in the English of English-dominant heritage speakers of Mandarin. Thus, the evidence available accords with Felser on this point: the dominant language can also be subject to pressures that result in ambiguity avoidance; it is now up to the field to determine how frequently this situation arises.…”

In support of representational economy: Agreement in heritage Spanish

“…At the syntactic level, heritage speakers tend to impose more rigid word order where native speakers allow for flexibility (Isurin & Ivanova-Sullivan 2008;Ivanova-Sullivan 2014); relatedly, they limit their inventory of syntactic dependencies (Polinsky 2011). At the intersection of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, evidence from Chinese and English heritage speakers suggests that heritage grammars lack quantifier scope ambiguities (Scontras et al 2017). The current investigation follows up on findings at the morphological level, where heritage speakers are known to eliminate irregular forms and struggle with inflectional morphology (Benmamoun et al 2013a;.…”

Dessintactitzar la sintaxi? Preocupacions sobre l’arquitectura de la gramàtica i el paper dels components d’interfície

“…The discussion above briefly commented on a couple of cases that cannot be captured in terms of externalization in any obvious way, but the literature on the syntax-semantics interface is full of similarly problematic phenomena of cross-linguistic variation (see i.a. Bach et al 1995;Chung & Ladusaw 2004;Matthewson 2010;Arregui et al 2014;Matthewson 2014;Etxeberria & Giannakidou 2014;Holmberg 2016;Keenan & Paperno 2017;Scontras et al 2017). It is unlikely that this type of phenomena can be accounted for as differences in externalization.…”