Search

In an attempt to explain first language attrition in emigrant populations, this paper investigates the explanatory power of a framework that has--until now--received little attention: the regression hypothesis (Jakobson, 1941). This hypothesis predicts that the order of attrition is the reverse of the order of acquisition. The regression hypothesis was tested in relation to the loss of morphology and syntax in Dutch immigrants in Anglophone Canada. Evidence in favor of regression was found, but mainly in the morphological domain. Syntax, on the other hand, was mostly characterized by L2 influences from English. As it is problematic to treat regression as a theory in its own right, these findings are then explained in the light of both generative and usage-based approaches, as well as the more recent Dynamic Systems Theory. (Contains 5 footnotes and 5 tables.)

In 1965, I became a student of Dutch and general linguistics at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. The rise of generative grammar played an important role in this change of perspective within Dutch linguistics. Word formation rules, as conceived of and discussed in that monograph, are incompatible with generative grammar or with any grammar-based linguistic framework, because, like the tradition they encode, these rules cross the synchronic-diachronic boundary that is central to all post-Saussurean structural linguistics. The Dutch tradition of morphology before the rise of generative grammar in the 1960s had a different focus, even though it also wanted to account for the word-forming creativity of the language user. [Extracted from the article]

This paper investigates the nature of the substitutions used for the dental fricatives (/θ/ and /ð/) by Dutch learners of English as a second language. By means of an OT analysis, the underlying reasons for the difficulties encountered with these sounds are brought to light. The present data reveal that phonetics (or acoustics) rather than phonology plays a major role in the selection of the phonemes used to substitute the dental fricatives. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]