Similarity in Language Transfer – Investigating Transfer of Light Verb Constructions From Dutch to German

Abstract

Bilingual speakers of typologically closely related languages tend to frequently experience language transfer, which suggests that similarity between languages is likely to play an important role in the transfer process. In this paper, we explore how three different types of similarity affect transfer of light verb constructions (lvc s), such as take a walk or set an alarm, from Dutch to German by native German speakers living in the Netherlands, namely: (a) similarity to existing constructions, (b) surface similarity based on whether the noun in the lvc is a cognate in Dutch and German, and (c) similarity in the light verb’s collocational contexts. The results suggest that all three types of similarity influence transfer: speakers add similar constructions to their language and they drop existing ones that happen to be less similar, ultimately facilitating convergence across the speakers’ languages.

Individual variation in contact effects – stability, convergence, and divergence

“…This included so-called light verb constructions (e.g., to set an alarm, to give a presentation; N = 45) and word order patterns (N = 45) that differed in the extent to which they are similar in Dutch and German. The results regarding these constructions are discussed in Barking et al (2022) and Barking et al (2023).…”

‘It’ Is Not for Everyone: Variation in Speakers’ Evaluation of Sociopragmatic Pronouns in Limburgian

“…Studies of bilingualism have amassed abundant evidence that bilinguals do not 'switch off' one language when using the other (e.g., Backus et al 2011;Barking et al 2022;Blumenfeld and Marian 2007;Travis et al 2017): in fact, cross-language activation is "a prime example of language contact in the bilingual mind" (Kootstra and Muysken 2019, p. 1), and cross-linguistic influence is common. Though to the best of our knowledge there have been no systematic studies of Dutch influence on Limburgian in general (but see Giesbers 1986;Vousten 1995 for interesting case studies), it stands to reason that in the speech of almost all speakers, there will be many instances of word choice, word use, and grammatical choices that betray the impact of Dutch.…”