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Grammar without speech production: The case of Labrador Inuttitut heritage receptive bilinguals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2011

MARINA SHERKINA-LIEBER ,
ANA T. PEREZ-LEROUX  and
ALANA JOHNS
MARINA SHERKINA-LIEBER*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
ANA T. PEREZ-LEROUX
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
ALANA JOHNS
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
*
Address for correspondence: Marina Sherkina-Lieber, Department of Linguistics, University of Toronto, Sidney Smith Hall, 4th floor, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3G3marina.lieber@gmail.com
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Abstract

We examine morphosyntactic knowledge of Labrador Inuttitut by Inuit receptive bilinguals (RBs) – heritage speakers who are capable of comprehension, but produce little or no speech. A grammaticality judgment study suggests that RBs possess sensitivity to morphosyntactic violations, though to a lesser degree than fluent bilinguals. Low-proficiency RBs are sensitive only to the most basic grammatical properties. Case omission is most difficult to detect, but morphemes bearing incorrect features (case oversuppliance, number agreement mismatch) or ordered incorrectly (tense and agreement, tense and negation) are easier, and performance on incorrect ordering of morphemes is near target with the core agreement morpheme for all RBs. While receptive bilinguals show patterns of grammatical deficits, they also demonstrate clear knowledge of the basic properties of word structure in Inuttitut. This has implications both for the psycholinguistics of bilingualism and for language revitalization efforts.

Keywords

receptive bilingualsincomplete acquisitionheritage languageInuktitutLabrador
Type
Research Article
Information
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , July 2011 , pp. 301 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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Footnotes

*

We would like to thank our participants, and also Rita Andersen, Alice Pilgrim, Regina Saimat, and Katie E. Winters for their expert help with the Inuttitut materials and data; the Nunatsiavut Government and Torngâsok Cultural Centre, especially Catharyn Andersen, for their help with the organization of the study; and also Rena Helms-Park, University of Toronto Psycholinguistic Group, and the audience of RASCAL (Relating Asymmetries in Speech and Comprehension in Acquisition of Language), for discussion, as well as three anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

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