This volume consists of a collection of papers that focus on structural/grammatical aspects of the process of first language attrition. It presents an overview of current research, methodological issues and important questions regarding first language attrition. In particular, it addresses the two most prominent issues in current L1 attrition research: Can attrition effects impact on features of core syntax, or are they limited to interface phenomena?, and; What is the role of age at onset (pre-/post-puberty) in this regard?By investigating attrition in a variety of settings, from a case study of a Spanish-speaking adoptee in the US to an empirical investigation of more than 50 long-term attriters of Turkish in the Netherlands, the investigations presented take a new perspective on these issues.Originally published in Language, Interaction and Acquisition - Langage, Interaction et Acquisition 2:2 (2011).

This volume presents a selection from the papers given at the 13th International Conference on Historical Linguistics. It offers a window on the current state of the art in historical linguistics: the papers cover a wide range of different languages, different language families, and different approaches to the study of linguistic change, ranging from optimality theory, theories of grammaticalization and the invisible hand, treatments of language contact and creolization to the linguistic consequences of political correctness. Among the languages under discussion are Akkadian, Catalan, Dutch, Finnish, Japanese, Sranan, Western Malayo-Polynesian, Yiddish, and a variety of Romance and Native American languages.

This work presents an in-depth analysis of text- and speaker-based meaning of non-canonical word order in English and ways to preserve this in English-German translation. Among the sentence structures under discussion are subject-verb inversion, Left Dislocation, Topicalization as well as wh-cleft and it -cleft sentences. Various approaches to the description and analysis of the meaning potential of these structures are presented and discussed, among them theories of grammaticalization, subjectivity, empathy and information structure.English as a rigid word order language has quite different means of creating meaning by syntactic variation than a free word order language like German. Contrastive analyses of English and German have emphasized structural differences due to the fact that English uses word order to encode the assignment of grammatical roles, while in German this is achieved mainly by morphological means. For most ‘marked’ constructions in English a corresponding, structure-preserving translation does not lead to an ungrammatical or unacceptable German sentence. The temptation for the translator to preserve these structures is therefore great. A case study discusses more than 200 example sentences drawn from recent works of US-American fiction and offers possible strategies for their translation.

This volume presents an overview of changes in paradigms, perspectives and contexts of research into bilingual development over the past two decades. During this time, the focus of perspective has changed. In the early 1990s, most investigations still proceeded from models that assumed modular components, hierarchical relationships and linear processes, and investigated what were perceived to be the ‘typical’ contexts of bilingual development (sequential, usually instructed bilingualism, where the second language would remain the weaker one and the speakers investigated were typically young adults). More recently it has been proposed that such models may not be complex enough to accommodate bilingual development in all its facets and settings (bimodal bilingualism, attrition, aging). This change has recently culminated in applications of chaos theory to Applied Linguistics, and in the widening range of situations of language acquisition, learning and deterioration which have been investigated.

This collection of articles provides theoretical foundations and perspectives for language attrition research. Its purpose is to enable investigations of L1 attrition to avail themselves more fully and more fundamentally of the theoretical frameworks that have been formulated with respect to SLA and bilingualism. In the thirteen papers collected here, experts in particular disciplines of bilingualism, such as neurolinguistics, formal linguistics, contact linguistics and language and identity, provide an in-depth perspective on L1 attrition which will make the translation of theory to hypothesis easier for future research.

This volume provides a state-of-the-art treatment of research on language attrition, the non-pathological loss of a language through lack of exposure. It combines a review of past and present research with in-depth treatments of specific theoretical and methodological issues and reports on individual studies. Special prominence is given to the identification of problematic areas in attrition research, with a view to pointing out possible solutions. The book specifically addresses itself to those who wish to acquaint themselves with the research area of language attrition, providing them with both a thorough overview of the field and a basis on which to build their own research. The combination of experience and an innovative outlook present in this collection, however, make it a valuable source for those familiar with attrition as well. Especially useful to both beginners and veterans is the extensive annotated bibliography.

This volume consists of a collection of papers that focus on structural/grammatical aspects of the process of first language attrition. It presents an overview of current research, methodological issues and important questions regarding first language attrition. In particular, it addresses the two most prominent issues in current L1 attrition research: Can attrition effects impact on features of core syntax, or are they limited to interface phenomena?, and; What is the role of age at onset (pre-/post-puberty) in this regard?By investigating attrition in a variety of settings, from a case study of a Spanish-speaking adoptee in the US to an empirical investigation of more than 50 long-term attriters of Turkish in the Netherlands, the investigations presented take a new perspective on these issues.Originally published in Language, Interaction and Acquisition - Langage, Interaction et Acquisition 2:2 (2011).

This volume presents a selection from the papers given at the 13th International Conference on Historical Linguistics. It offers a window on the current state of the art in historical linguistics: the papers cover a wide range of different languages, different language families, and different approaches to the study of linguistic change, ranging from optimality theory, theories of grammaticalization and the invisible hand, treatments of language contact and creolization to the linguistic consequences of political correctness. Among the languages under discussion are Akkadian, Catalan, Dutch, Finnish, Japanese, Sranan, Western Malayo-Polynesian, Yiddish, and a variety of Romance and Native American languages.

This work presents an in-depth analysis of text- and speaker-based meaning of non-canonical word order in English and ways to preserve this in English-German translation. Among the sentence structures under discussion are subject-verb inversion, Left Dislocation, Topicalization as well as wh-cleft and it -cleft sentences. Various approaches to the description and analysis of the meaning potential of these structures are presented and discussed, among them theories of grammaticalization, subjectivity, empathy and information structure.English as a rigid word order language has quite different means of creating meaning by syntactic variation than a free word order language like German. Contrastive analyses of English and German have emphasized structural differences due to the fact that English uses word order to encode the assignment of grammatical roles, while in German this is achieved mainly by morphological means. For most ‘marked’ constructions in English a corresponding, structure-preserving translation does not lead to an ungrammatical or unacceptable German sentence. The temptation for the translator to preserve these structures is therefore great. A case study discusses more than 200 example sentences drawn from recent works of US-American fiction and offers possible strategies for their translation.

This volume presents an overview of changes in paradigms, perspectives and contexts of research into bilingual development over the past two decades. During this time, the focus of perspective has changed. In the early 1990s, most investigations still proceeded from models that assumed modular components, hierarchical relationships and linear processes, and investigated what were perceived to be the ‘typical’ contexts of bilingual development (sequential, usually instructed bilingualism, where the second language would remain the weaker one and the speakers investigated were typically young adults). More recently it has been proposed that such models may not be complex enough to accommodate bilingual development in all its facets and settings (bimodal bilingualism, attrition, aging). This change has recently culminated in applications of chaos theory to Applied Linguistics, and in the widening range of situations of language acquisition, learning and deterioration which have been investigated.

This collection of articles provides theoretical foundations and perspectives for language attrition research. Its purpose is to enable investigations of L1 attrition to avail themselves more fully and more fundamentally of the theoretical frameworks that have been formulated with respect to SLA and bilingualism. In the thirteen papers collected here, experts in particular disciplines of bilingualism, such as neurolinguistics, formal linguistics, contact linguistics and language and identity, provide an in-depth perspective on L1 attrition which will make the translation of theory to hypothesis easier for future research.

This volume provides a state-of-the-art treatment of research on language attrition, the non-pathological loss of a language through lack of exposure. It combines a review of past and present research with in-depth treatments of specific theoretical and methodological issues and reports on individual studies. Special prominence is given to the identification of problematic areas in attrition research, with a view to pointing out possible solutions. The book specifically addresses itself to those who wish to acquaint themselves with the research area of language attrition, providing them with both a thorough overview of the field and a basis on which to build their own research. The combination of experience and an innovative outlook present in this collection, however, make it a valuable source for those familiar with attrition as well. Especially useful to both beginners and veterans is the extensive annotated bibliography.