Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie

03.07. Jelena Živojinović (Udine / Verona), Jelena Simić (Graz), Alberto Frasson (Wrocław): Beyond the suffix: Examining imperfectivization strategies in L2 and heritage BCMS in Italy [zoom] 

There are numerous studies addressing various aspectual issues in heritage and L2 Slavic, particularly when it comes to Russian (Laleko 2008, 2010a,b; Mikhaylova 2011; Pereltsvaig 2002, 2004, 2008; Polinsky 1995, 1996, 1997, 2008; Polinsky & Scontras 2019, among others). Previous studies on Russian heritage with English dominant show some notable difference in the aspectual system between heritage and non-heritage Russian speakers. In her study on low proficiency adult heritage speakers of Russian, Polinsky (2008) claims that heritage spekers overgeneralize the suffixal imperfectives in -Vva- in spontaneous production. Moreover, there is a general disappearance of the perfective/present stem distinctions in verbs and the expression of aspect through the use of analytical forms with the light verbs “be”, “become”, “do” instead of through affixes.

In this talk, we present the results of an experimental study on heritage and L2 BCMS in Italy, with Italian dominant. We argue that proficient heritage speakers behave as target-like monolinguals as predicted by the Interface hypothesis (cf. Sorace 2011), whereas L2 learners diverge from both monolinguals and heritage speakers, showing a general preference for non-suffixal experimental items. We propose that the access to the syntax-morphology interface in L2 learners exhibits an effect of L1 input, resulting in divergent imperfectivization strategies.