dissertation:=?windows-1252?Q?=91Transfer=92_?=of argument omission in the speech of ASL-English bilinguals

[Mark A. Mandel]

LINGUIST List 23.5281

Institution: University of Connecticut 
Program: Department of Linguistics 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2012 

Author: Elena V. Koulidobrova 

Dissertation Title: 
When the Quiet Surfaces: ‘Transfer’ of argument omission 
	in the speech of ASL-English bilinguals 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition 
                            Syntax 

Subject Language(s): American Sign Language (ase) 

Dissertation Director:
Zeljko Boskovic 
Diane Lillo-Martin 

Dissertation Abstract:

The main research question of this dissertation is the nature of 
language interaction effects observed in linguistic patterns of 
multilingual children. Such effects—often described as syntactic 
transfer/influence of one of the languages on the other—have been 
richly documented in the multilingualism literature. I review an 
influential model (Hulk & Müller 2000) of these effects and propose an 
alternative, which I demonstrate to be more consistent with the 
framework adopted in the dissertation (i.e. the Minimalist Program, 
Chomsky 1995, i.a). In short, I argue that ‘language transfer effects’ 
are instances of a Minimalist-in-spirit code-switching (e.g. MacSwan 
1999), which, for a variety of reasons, I label ‘language-synthesis.’ It 
amounts to the presence of elements from different languages in one 
Numeration and requires that such language alternation be 
unconstrained unless independently blocked. 

I focus the discussion on the predictions made by each of the two 
models for argument omission between null- and non-null-argument 
languages of a bilingual. Using longitudinal data from two balanced 
A(merican)S(ign)L(anguage)-English bilinguals, I show that unlike the 
cross-linguistic influence approach, the language-synthesis alternative 
accounts for the distribution of null arguments in the children’s English. 
On the way to this conclusion, I address an ASL-internal issue—the 
nature of argument omission. I review the standard analyses of null 
arguments in ASL and challenge them. Specifically, I argue that in non-
agreeing/-inflected contexts, the null argument in ASL is a case of 
argument ellipsis of a bare singular NP and, resembles in many ways 
Japanese-style argument ellipsis. Among the consequences of the 
account are the status of morphological agreement and the nature of 
the nominal domain in ASL. Essentially, the dissertation shows that 
ASL behaves as though it does not project a DP. 

This approach, I suggest, accounts for certain transfer effects found 
in the speech of bimodal bilinguals: the presence of certain lexical 
items from ASL (deemed responsible for argument ellipsis) in a 
Numeration otherwise containing lexical items from English may result 
in ASL-style argument ellipsis in bilinguals’ English. Moreover, because 
in relevant ways, bimodal bilinguals behave differently from unimodal 
bilinguals, the dissertation appeals to the unique nature of bimodal 
bilingualism as a testing ground for language interaction effects in 
multilinguals. 



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